Friday, August 17, 2012

And he likes to sing along

I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we
condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American
imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we
call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent
choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!

6 comments:

Owen Courrèges
said...

jeffrey,

Honestly, I can't understand half their lyrics and I don't particularly like RATM. Still, I don't think it's a stretch to say that most of their fans, including the liberal ones, disagree with them on many of the issues they sing about. If they had to rely on the extreme socialist left as their sole fan base they wouldn't have gotten on mainstream radio and sold so many recordings.

I just found it a little crass to slam Ryan for liking their music. It's like Ryan said "nice music!" and Morello gave him the middle finger. I can't imagine Morello would like it if this happened to him in his daily life:

At a restaurant - Morello: Nice food, chef!Chef: Yeah, food I produced because of this wonderful capitalist system of ours, but you'd prefer Soviet rations, right?

At an art gallery -Morello: I really like this painting.Artist: And I really hate your music. Allow me to explain why in lurid detail...

All that shows is that Paul Ryan probably wouldn't like them as much if they sung intelligibly. In any event, the idea that you have to agree with the politics of music to appreciate it is not something that intelligent musicians should be pushing. You can like Wagner and not be a Nazi and you can like Rage Against the Machine and not be a pinko.

Eh. Sort of. I can see why someone might enjoy say a U2 or a Beatles record but not necessarily approve of with Bono's annoying personality or John Lennon's politics. The reason for that is in those cases the politics isn't always central to the point of the music. Rage, I think is maybe different from that.